Assassination

Chapter 9

Brynleigh Pasternack

Brynleigh dismounted from her horse, holding the reins to walk alongside him as she walked towards the gate of the castle. She tried to straighten her back to appear calm and confident, despite that not all being what she actually felt. But she couldn’t let the guards see that.

She flattened down her dress that was dirty from traveling on the road for multiple days and sleeping on forest floors. She was well aware that she probably didn’t look her best, but as she gazed around at the other people around her lining up, she saw that they looked just as bad as her if not worse.

She wondered briefly how long or how far every single person there had traveled and what types of hardships they had endured along the way. But also, what reason did they have to do it? She knew why she was there, but what about the others? She doubted anyone else was there for the same reason as her.

She waited there for hours with only those hopeless types of questions to keep her entertained, along with her horse acting with just as much personality as he usually did. He kept trying to nudge her out of line to go run back along the road, but she stood firm and kept both of them there. The lines were only getting longer, and she really didn’t want to stand there into the hours of the next morning.

Then finally, “Name and reason for being here please miss?” The gatekeeper asked, as she had heard for what seemed like the millionth time after standing behind so many people. She already knew her answer.

“Katherine Cavendish, sir. I’m here for the Servants Program.” She smiled to try and appear as genuine as possible.

“Aye, we have a lot of you folk wanting that particular job. Not fancying becoming a Knight, ey?” He asked her, turning his nose up. She was certain it was because she still had her accent from being from the West of the Kingdom. Which wasn’t exactly known as the most glamorous part.

“No, just trying to get checked in. Here are my documents.” She held out her papers, hoping to end the uncomfortable interaction as soon as she possibly could.

He just nodded at her, not giving her another word as he looked over all her papers. She felt her hands become slippery as she saw him raise his eyebrow at one of them. She hadn’t had much of a chance to look over the fake documents while she had been traveling on the road, not wanting to get any of them dirty for fear that they wouldn’t take them at the gate if they were in that condition.

She had been assured multiple times that everything looked real and legit. She had been promised that she wouldn’t be caught. She had also been promised that if she was, she would be killed without a second thought. She tried to hide her nervous swallow as he looked back up at her with an incredulous look on his face.

“‘Fargot’ is a stupid middle name.” Then he tossed back everything to her and yelled, “NEXT! Name and reason for being here, please, sir.” She began to walk away before he could change his mind.

She looked down at the paper and saw that it really did say Katherine Fargot Cavendish. She may have hated that guard, but she couldn’t disagree with him that it was, in fact, a very stupid name.

She stood up straighter, though. She had only gotten through one station so far, and she still had three more to go. She had been told many times before leaving what she was supposed to do at each station.

She moved forward to the second station, where they would search her belongings.

She held up her bag, but the lady there didn’t pay her any mind when she said hello. So she just stood there as everything was pulled out and inspected without much care of if it broke or not. She tried not to yell at the lady when she ripped one of her few shirts right down the front of it. ‘It’s fine’ she thought to herself, ‘I can always just sew it up later, I need the practice. Don’t I?’